Yesterday saw the winners of the 2015 World Drinks Awards announced, as well as the winners of Whisky Magazine's Icons of Whisky and World Whiskies Awards - a very busy rotation of the Earth! It was also a fantastic day for many of the brands we work with / own / represent as you'll see from the veritable cornucopia of trophies and awards below.

Drink by the Dram have also produced a selection of Winners Tasting Sets, which you can find here.

'Twas six nights before Christmas, when all through the house.
Not a creature was stirring, except for a mouse!

Not just the situation in Jake from Master of Malt's home, but also in the homes of all those with Whisky Advent Calendars. In the latter case though, the mouse in question is fortunately none other than Douglas Laing's Timorous Beastie! A tongue in cheek name for a corker of a Highland blended malt that's created by the jolly folk behind one of my other favourites, Big Peat at Christmas. (Plus, I like his beard.)

Timorous Beastie is made exclusively with malts from Highland distilleries including Dalmore, Glen Garioch and Glengoyne!

Followers of That Boutique-y Whisky Company's batches of Arran single malt Scotch whisky will know that the label features Boutique-y illustrator Emily Chappell stranded on a desert island. Not the most festive of scenes, perhaps, except if you look carefully at Batch 4 you'll see that she's actually put up her Christmas tree!

An appropriate choice for day 18 of the Whisky Advent Calendar then! There's even some festive spice and warming rye-style notes in this batch, although it's very much still a charming Arran, and I'm rather partial to a charming Arran...

"Behind window 10 you'll find Glen Garioch, a dram that's sure to make you cheery." Now, if that rhymed then well done, you're pronouncing Glen Garioch correctly and David Mitchell won't have to shoot you.

It should come as no surprise that I'm rather more jovial and benevolent than Mitchell & Webb's Grammar Nazi character when it comes to the sometimes tricky names that pop up in the whisky world though. I'm all about education rather than snobbery, so yes: simply say "Glen Geery" and you've got it. The taste is much more important than the name anyway, and this is a traditional highland single malt treat bottled at 48% without chill-filtration.

They say that when things come in threes, they're all the more pleasing for it. That's the rule of three. If today's anything to go by then 'they' may well be on to something, as the 3cl dram in our Whisky Advent Calendars is a delicious Lowland single malt which is distilled three times and matured in three different types of cask (ex-Pedro Ximénez, bourbon and Oloroso)!

So I trust you'll enjoy your Auchentoshan Three Wood, and why not also make the most of my treats below for Day 9 (that's three threes, by the way).

Now this here story I'm about to unfold is something you should all be listenin' to. And listenin' well. There's a reward, you see. A reward of Drinks by the Dram Christmas Cracker sets, full of award-winning spirits and liqueurs, ready to be claimed by those with a keen eye for spotting the roughest, toughest cracker-pullers in the festive west...

Think you can identify the ace-highs from the crowbait? Throughout the first weeks of December we'll be reliving the savage Cracker-Pullin' Tournament of 1871. We're giving away 10x sets of Drinks by the Dram Christmas Crackers per round, up to and including the grand Final, to folk who correctly guess the winner in each showdown!

Before we get started, yes, we know. We’re banging on about Christmas and it’s not even Halloween yet. Most of us at MoM Towers are only just putting the finishing touches to our costumes - this year I’m changing it up from my usual Beastie Boys ‘Sabotage’ cop and going as a horse with Jake. He’s kindly volunteered to be the back half (but he doesn't know that yet).

However, the Drinks by the Dram Christmas Crackers were recently put up for pre-order and now we can’t but feel all Christmassy and whatnot. Just look at these handsome little rascals! Don’t expect to find any tiny rulers, giant plastic paper-clips or ridiculously easy puzzles here, oh no. These Christmas Crackers are filled with award-winning spirits and liqueurs!

So – it’s about that time again – new batches, and replenished batches of some absolute crackers from That Boutique-y Whisky Company.

First up – spoiler alert – we do have a new batch of both the Port Ellen, and Brora. I’ll understand if you want to stop reading for a bit and take care of a small (okay – large) transaction.

We’ve also got some brand spanking new lines though – 2 single malts and a blended malt (which after the editor’s choice award in the most recent edition of Whisky Magazine), should see some interest piqued...

The folks here at MoM Towers aren’t going to win the World Cup anytime soon. Our team, Bitter Bastards FC, are just a few players short of a full squad and therefore wouldn’t qualify, so the German team has nothing to be worried about… Yet. We’re also not going to win Wimbledon, despite a small subset of us being pretty gosh-darn good at squash (they’re basically the same sport, one just has more passive aggressive connotations and a wall). Oscars? Probably not. Grammys? Unlikely. Nobel Peace Prize? Doubtful at best. Medals for making stunning drinks? Now you’re talking!

That’s right, that little preamble is leading up to us proudly showing off the medals our products scooped up at the prestigious International Wine & Spirits Competition 2014. We’re always immensely excited and grateful when the products we make are commended by the highly knowledgeable tasters behind these awarding bodies - it really does mean the world to us.

Well these have certainly been a wee while coming, but all good things, etc...

Truth is, I've sort of forgotten that any other type of whisky other than 'peated' exists given our recentexploits, but looking back at these labels reminds me that yes. They do indeed exist, and if memory serves, many of them are delicious.